ABC's Election Analyst blogs on the wonderful world of Australian Elections.

August 30, 2012

2012 NSW Local Government Elections

NSW voters go to the polls on Saturday 8 September to vote for local councils accross the state.

I've put up lists of the candidates contesting Councils where the election is conducted by the NSW Electoral Commission. There are 14 councils conducting their own elections and I have included links to these council websites. Wollongong and Shellharbour Councils were elected in 2011 after several years in administration and will not face election this year. There are also several uncontested elections, details provided on each council page.

At the moment I am going through and putting historical votes on for each council and adding indicators for sitting councillors.

I'll be providing a full results service on 8 September for all councils where the election is being conducted by the Electoral Commission.

Comments

Could you tell me which voting system is used to elect the councillors in the City of Sydney? Is it STV?
I can't seem to find and information about it on the NSWEC site.

COMMENT: It is STV and is closest to the NSW Legislative Council system. Candidates are grouped, there is above and below the line voting, and voters have the option of directing preferences by numbering squares above the line. A single '1' above the line only has preferences for the selected group and cannot flow as preferences to another group. Group ticket votes lodged by parties cannot give preferences to other groups on the ballot paper.

Will any coverage be provided of elections not being conducted by the NSWEC? Also any idea why a few councils are not using the NSWEC? Bit of a mess IMO.

COMMENT: Allowing councils to conduct their own elections was a promise of the Coalition at the 2011 election. 136 councils are using the NSWEC, 14 have taken to opt-out allowed by the government and are conducting their own elections.

I have been able to download all nominations from the NSWEC and should be able to download strip and publish results for the 136 council on election night, though I need to do some more development on the software.

The other 14 councils all need to be dealt with manually and individually. There is no standard format for publication of nominations and no information on the publication of results. I will not deal with these councils until I am certain I can capture and publish results for the NSWEC supervised elections.

Can you tell me how the grouped & individual votes are counted for election of councillors for each ward. If a group is miles ahead of any other group or individual does that mean all candidates in that group are successful?

COMMENT: Is is quota basedm proportional representation as is used in the Senate. A group essentialluy elects as many councillors as there are filled quotas, the final vacancies then being filled by the distribution of preferences.

Antony
I am having trouble understanding how votes are counted in a combined ATL and BTL system. Am I right in thinking all BTL votes roll up to contribute to the quota for the Group and if, say, the total group quota is only 1.5, only the first candidate is elected. The BTL votes then only affect the distribution of preferences.
If the quota is 1000 votes and the first count ATL vote for a group is 300 and the first candidate in the group gets 200 individual BTL votes and the second candidate gets 501 BTL, then the first candidate gets elected and the second doesn't.
I can't find any information that explains the interaction between ATL and BTL votes the the LG elections in NSW. Please help.

COMMENT: Quotas are actually done by candidate, not by group. Below the line votes flow as preferences to candidates as filled in by the voter, so they only roll into the group total if the voter filled in the ballot paper that way. In the example you refer to, the 2nd placed candidate with 501 votes had more votes, and if the two candidates were at any stage the lowest polling candidates, the lead candidate with only 500 votes would be excluded and have their preference distributed, which includes the ATL votes which would then flow to the second candidate.

We tend to lump candidates together to provide group totals as that tends to be the way the counting works out, but the count is actually coinducted by candidate totals, not group totals.